Dear Hermione
by MaskedRomance
Summary: Sixth year has yet to begin and already Voldemort is taking over the lives of our three heros. The Weasleys are attacked as a warning to our beloved Harry Potter. But a warning of what? Dumbledore won't risk finding out and Hermione is packed up and shipp


**Chapter 1**

**Good Byes**

_Dear Hermione, _

_You are going to hate me for this. I hate myself for this. Death eaters attacked Ron and his family. _

Panic had struck through her.

_Don't worry, not much damage was done. Mrs. Weasley has a concussion, and Ginny broke her arm, but other than that everyone is fine. A bit frazzled, but fine. The attack was sent as a warning._

Relief.

_They're lucky to be alive. Here's the thing, Hermione, Dumbledore and I think that you should spend the summer in a safe place. I know you've only spent a week with your parents and you've missed them a lot, but you have to leave tomorrow. We don't want to risk you getting hurt. As if you don't hate me enough by now, Dumbledore thinks that the safest place for you is the Malfoy's. I tried to get you some place else, I really did! However, Dumbledore's sure you'll be safe there. _

Hermione sat in stunned silence. Stay at Malfoy's? Stay at Draco Malfoy's? All summer!

_Just reminding you this is for your own safety._

_Harry_

Once the shock had settled in Hermione screamed into her pillow.

"Hermione!" her father called up. "We need to talk."

Hermione had stomped her way down the stairs in anger. She wasn't mad at her parents, why would she be? She knew she was going to miss them terribly not being able to see them until Christmas. She just didn't feel like talking to anyone right now.

"'Mione, we've just received a letter from Dumbledore about staying at a motel for a while. What kind of danger are you in?" her father was angry, but his anger just hid his worry. He wasn't one to show real emotion.

Hermione had neglected to tell her parents about her adventures for the past 5 years. She didn't want to worry them. Plus, she knew that if she told them that Voldemort, the second most powerful and the most evil wizard since Salazar Slytherin, was after Harry and his friends they would never allow her to stay friends with Harry.

The teenager sighed. This was a day she knew would come sooner or later. Though she had wanted it to come after she had left school and was old enough to live on her own. Still, she wasn't one that often lied.

"You might want to sit down, this is a long story," Hermione began. Her mother, who had been already sitting, cast a worried glance at her husband. Mr. Granger returned the glance in his own angry/worried manor and chose to stay standing.

"It all started fifteen years ago when Lord Voldemort killed Harry's parents."

"Stop!" the older, shaggy haired man in the corner interrupted. "Who is this 'Lord Voldemort'?" Hermione could have smacked herself. Of course her parents wouldn't know who Voldemort was, they were muggles.

"Voldemort," she was still getting used to the word. She had just started using it the past year. "Is the second most powerful and the most evil wizard of our time." Her father nodded and she went on. "Well, fifteen years ago, Lord Voldemort heard of a prophecy declaring that a wizard, much like himself, born on the 31 of July in 1988 would be the cause of his downfall. Naturally, he went looking for the child. He soon found Harry Potter, who was, in fact, a lot like him. Pitch black hair and a half blood."

"Half blood?" her mother asked.

"The son or daughter of a pure wizard and muggle born, or muggle," Hermione explained. Her mother nodded in understanding.

"When Voldemort went after Harry, he killed Harry's parents."

"If this Voldemort is so powerful, why is Harry still living? He couldn't kill a baby?" her father laughed at the irony.

"I'm getting there," Hermione let out a short breath in frustration from all the interruptions. "Harry's parents died protecting Harry. His mother gave her life, begging that Voldemort take her instead and in so doing placed a spell on him. Love is a form of magic stronger than any curse. Voldemort's spell backfired on him, rendering him defenseless and he fled." While talking, Hermione had poured herself a glass of water. She took a sip of it. "Jumping forward in time to our first year at Hogwarts. Voldemort had learned over the years how to attach himself to another living being, managing to live even longer. When he learned that Harry would be going to Hogwarts that year, he attached himself to one of our teachers, Professor Quirrel."  
"You mean that nice, stuttering fellow we met at that pub?" Mrs. Granger asked.

Hermione nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. Well, throughout the year we found out what he was after. The Philosopher's Stone." To shorten up the story, and so not to confuse her parents, she left out that they had, at first thought Snape wanted the stone. "We had to go through a maze until Harry was the only one that could go on further."

"Why? Were you hurt?" her mother asked worried.

"No, Mum, there was only enough potion in the bottle to let one person go through the fire, forward. Harry had to fight Voldemort that night." Hermione went through every other year, telling about the adventures she and her friends had had. At the end of her telling of fifth year, her parents were stunned.

"Why didn't you ever tell us about this?" her father asked, anger in his tone.

"I'm sorry, I just knew that if I told you, you'd send me to another wizarding school and I didn't want to leave Hogwarts."

"But, Hermione, you've been hurt, and put in danger. All because of that boy, Harry," her mother said in disgust. She had liked Harry the first time she met him.

"Mum, you've always liked Harry! It's not his fault he was in a prophecy. None of this is his fault," she defended her best friend.

"Except in fifth year. He put you in danger, all because of what that house elf told him. He killed Mr. Black…"

"He did not kill Sirius!" Hermione snapped. That wasn't true at all. Though Harry hadn't taken her advice, he did get many Death-Eaters put in Azkaban, for example, Lucius Malfoy. The world was better with out him.

"Don't you snap at your mother like that," Mr. Granger barked at his daughter.

"You don't understand! Neither of you do!" Hermione yelled.

"I understand that you are not going back to that school with that rascal of a boy!" the man of the house roared.

"I will go back to school! It's the only place I am safe!"

"No, you will not! You will stay here and go to a regular school. If we are lucky we can get all this magic crap out of you. Just look at what it did to your teeth!"

"It's better than spending thousands of euro on braces! Now I don't look like a beaver!"

"And how did that happen? Oh, that's right, that Malfoy boy hexed you and made you have to go to the nurse! You will not go back to that freak school and that's final!"

Freak. It hit her hard like a thousand knives stabbing her heart. A mixture of anger and sadness swirled around her in the form of bright sparkling lights. Hermione had never lost control of her powers before, and now that it had started, her power was out of control. Dozens of bright colored, sparkling lights spilled around the house. The tablecloth caught fire. A lightning bolt hit the roof. The kitchen cabinets banged open and closed.

"STOP IT!" her father yelled.

"I can't!" Hermione cried, looking sharply around her at the small explosions and fires bursting everywhere. Her mother ran out of the room, coming back in with a fire extinguisher. Hermione took a look at her father, who was trying to stop the cabinets from banging.

She ran quickly back up to her room and sat down in the middle of her bed, Indian style, and looked around the room. She stared at her Love poster.

She read it aloud. "Love is patient. Love is kind and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecoming. It does not seek its own. Is not provoked. Love does not take in to account a wrong suffered. Does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all the things, believes all the things, hopes all things endures all things. Love never fails."

She grabbed a backpack and ripped the poster off the wall, folding it and putting it in the bag. She looked around again.

"Try to realize it's all within yourself no one else can make you change and to see. You're really only very small and life flows on within you and without you." She grabbed that one and put it in the same bag. She ripped the pictures off of her mirror and put them in a pile. Climbing under the bed she grabbed a box. Opening it she grabbed a locket and put it around her neck, taking a second to admire its beauty in the mirror, before going back to the box. She threw the pictures from the mirror into the box and put it on the bed. She took another moment to calm down and stared at her picture of a rushing creek. Trees surrounding a small hill while water passed by. She closed her eyes trying to picture being there. Sitting back down, crossed legged on her bed closed her eyes again. The air conditioner hummed, tuning out what she could hear of her parents talking. She concentrated on the sound of the air conditioning. Picturing a piece of string connecting the sound of the humming to her brain, she thought of a pair of scissors cutting it. The sound slowly faded away. The only sound she could hear was of her own breathing. Again she pictured the rushing creek surrounded by trees. She heard the wind rush by her, the sound of the birds twittering to each other. The soothing sound of water rushed over her. She could smell the wet wood from the trees. She opened her eyes. She was sitting high up in one of the trees, watching as a frog leapt from one lily pad to the next. An orange cat waddled down to the creek.

"Hi, Crookshanks," Hermione called down to the cat. It mewed up at her. The cat's head turned, ears perked. Hermione could hear it too. People. A man and a woman, talking. The closer to two people came, the louder their voices came. Soon, she could hear them yelling. Crookshanks meowed and jumped over the narrow creek, away from the bickering adults.

"Mum? Dad?" Hermione asked. There was a faint sound of banging. The brunette looked around to see where it was coming from. The banging was getting louder, and louder.

"HERMIONE!" someone called.

"No!" Hermione said falling out of the tree. She was falling, and falling. There didn't seem to be a stop. Suddenly there was a bright off white light. The air conditioning kicked off with a pop. Hermione snapped open her eyes again. She was in her room. The girl looked around, she'd never noticed the ceiling was this close to her bed. Looking down she gasped. She was levitating. "Oh my God!"

Someone banged on the door again. Hermione twitched at the sound and fell down onto the bed.

"Hermione, Dumbledore is here," her mother's kind voice told her through the door.

"Alright," she managed to say through her confusion. Why would Professor Dumbledore be there? Was it because she'd used magic in front of muggles over the summer? Was she now going to be expelled? No, it was an accident! She'd lost control.

She stood slowly. The fall had given her a headache. She'd never been in a trance like that visual before. Nor had she ever levitated. Well, not without a broom.

Still semi dazed, Hermione made her way downstairs.

"Hello, Professor," she greeted Dumbledore.

"Hello, Miss Granger. I'm here to take you to the Malfoy's."

Just as she had hit the bed, reality seemed to punch her in the stomach. "Now! Right now?"

"Well, it was going to be tomorrow, but I had a feeling tonight would be better." He had that twinkle in his eye when he knew something that no one else would think he'd know. "You may use your wand to pack. I'm sure you know your spells enough to pack all you want." Hermione nodded and quickly ran upstairs.

She tore through her closet and found her wand. She pulled out a few more bags and started shrinking everything in sight, putting them in the bags. She felt like she should be dancing on a pot singing like Merlin in Disney's "The Sword in the Stone". Lastly she shrunk the biggest bags and put them into the smallest, shrinking that one and putting it in her purse.

The only thing she had left unpacked was a change of clothes. It wasn't her best-looking clothes, but what did she care, it was Malfoy. The soon to be Death-Eater. She sat down on her sheetless, pillowless bed. If Malfoy's father was a Death-Eater in Azkaban, how could he be trusted? Wouldn't he tell Voldemort where she was to get on his good side? How can Dumbledore trust him so much?

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Hermione called. Dumbledore slowly walked into the room and sat down next to Hermione.

"You're done, why stay in here?" Dumbledore said knowingly.

"Just…thinking. Professor, may I ask you a question?"

"I believe you just did, but I'll allow you another."

Hermione smiled a little, "How can you trust Malfoy? His father is a Death-Eater, how do you know he won't sell me out?"

"Ah, I knew this question was coming. Young Mister Malfoy has pledged his allegiance to Voldemort, that is true, but he is a spy for our side."

"How do you know he's not just lying?"

"I happen to think the best of people. Mr. Malfoy is a good person, born to a bad family. It could happen to anyone. Don't let the way he acts hide what he truly is inside."

"Sort of like, don't judge a book by its cover. Right?"

"Exactly. Give him another chance. He's had a rough life. And I made him promise not to call you a Mudblood anymore." He lightly pulled on Hermione's ponytail, like an uncle teasing a niece. "Now, get changed, and I'll meet you at the door." Hermione watched the older man leave the room. She stood, taking off her shirt. She unhooked the straps on her bra and put a red, folded bandana on backwards so she could tie it, then pushed it around so the triangle was in front. The major thing she liked about this shirt was that it showed off the only part of her that was rebel. Her belly ring. She kept on the jeans she was wearing and put on a pair of Adidas with black stripes. Pulling the hair band holding her hair in a ponytail she shook her head, letting some curls fall into her face. She was very pretty. She had had her light brown hair streaked with blond. She was taller now, 5'7 to be exact. She was definitely not fat, but she wasn't rib showing, stick figure skinny like most models she'd seen in magazines. Her chest area, well, lets just say she'd gotten a few looks on the beach.

She checked herself in the mirror in the bathroom. She put some strawberry lip balm on her pink lips and rubbed them together. Well, it's as good as she'd get for Malfoy. (Which for that matter looked pretty good, even if she'd just grabbed a random shirt.)

She went back downstairs and met up with Dumbledore. Her mother was waiting for her too. Her father wasn't, however. She was thankful; Hermione didn't want to see him at the moment.

"Oh, Hermione, honey, you look gorgeous!" her mother praised her. Hermione blushed; she hadn't wanted to look good. In truth she wanted to look horrible so Malfoy wouldn't look her up and down like she'd seen him do to other girls.

Her mother hugged her tightly. "Bye, sweetie," she leaned down and whispered, "Don't be too mad at your father, he just doesn't want you hurt. You know him." Mrs. Granger gave her a sweet smile.

_Not bloody likely he doesn't want me hurt. He doesn't want to be known as the father of a freak. A geeky freak. _She remembered what the kids at her elementary school used to call her. 'Geeky freak, geeky freak!' How she hated that. Mudblood was even better than that.

"Well, Miss Granger. Are you ready to go?" Dumbledore asked the nervous girl in front of him.

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be," Hermione sighed. Dumbledore smiled at her.

"Bye, Mum." She gave her one last hug before she left.

Dumbledore pulled a golden pocket watch out of his robe. Obviously it was a port key. Hermione touched it and waved to her mom before feeling the familiar pull beneath her navel. The same feeling she'd felt every time she used the time turner.

The feeling ended and Hermione fell to the ground. Dumbledore held out his hands and she took them, standing up.

"Welcome to the Malfoy Manor," Dumbledore exclaimed.


End file.
